The Skeptics

The spectacle of South Korean president Moon Jae-in proclaiming that the United States cannot attack North Korea without his permission is an embarrassment for a country that believes it has taken its place among the nations. He undoubtedly realizes that no American president, especially the present one, would give another nation a veto over U.S. security.

On Monday night from Fort Myer, Virginia, President Trump told the nation that despite what he’d said from the campaign trail in 2016, he was not going to end the war in Afghanistan. Instead, he would expand it and remove any visible exit signs from the equation. Whether this decision will cost him politically in 2020 is yet to be seen, but the cost to the nation in the present could be significant. The plan outlined by the president is virtually certain to continue the unbroken record of failure.

In his address to the nation on Monday evening, President Donald Trump explained that his “original instinct,” when he came into office, “was to pull out” of Afghanistan. But “decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office,” and so he, like his two predecessors, has determined that U.S. forces will remain there. “The American people are weary of war without victory,” he explained.

What does a country do when its military has been fighting a conflict half-way around the world for over a decade and a half, supporting a host government so corrupted internally, disorganized politically, and at a very real risk of collapsing completely without continuous international military and financial support? The United States is in exactly that predicament with respect to its never ending mission in Afghanistan, a nation whose political leadership never misses an opportunity to quarrel with each other and make a mistake.

This past weekend, there was good news on the North Korea front. Yes, you heard that right; for a change, we aren’t talking about an underground nuclear test or another intercontinental ballistic missile launch screeching into the waters near Japan, but rather a unified message from the international community that Pyongyang’s antics are making it more enemies by the week.

North Korea backed away modestly from its threat to surround Guam with a ring of fire on Monday, a surprising de-escalation in the war of words that seemed late last week to be building toward an actual armed conflict. The Wall Street Journal provides a useful timeline of the crisis here.

One of the benefits of having a pundit as president is that when the national moment calls for a little vitriol, you’ve got a natural ready to go. That was the advice that I gave to Donald Trump in the UK Spectator earlier this week: turn a little of his trademark scorn on the white nationalists who brought domestic terrorism to Charlottesville.

North Korea obviously wants to be a nuclear power with the ability to deter the United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to reassure Pyongyang about America’s intentions. Unfortunately, however, Kim Jong-un would be a fool to believe any promises made by Washington. Only actions are likely to convince him.

President Donald Trump has struggled in his first six months on the job. His signature legislative goals—from Obamacare repeal to the border wall—are stuck in Congress. He has managed to push through some initiatives via executive action, but these have been thwarted or delayed by the courts.

If you’re a cabinet secretary or a senior staffer in the Trump administration and somehow get on the bad side of the boss, then you better watch out. Eventually, Trump will unleash hell in your direction in the most public of ways. Perhaps it will be a stream of early morning tweets to his thirty-four million followers, an expression of disappointment at a news conference, or a shot across the bow during a newspaper interview about your job security.